Hello Everyone,
This week’s blog post is quite packed with a whole host of things, so here is the itinerary for you to scan to the section(s) that you wish to read about:
Will Davenport
Ky Nam Documentary Reminder
Gabriel Gekoskie (The Next Featured Composer!!)
FSU EChO Concert
Oliver Schoonover Mini-Feature
Moving Forward
Will Davenport
If you have not already, make sure to listen to the most recent episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration, featuring the composer Will Davenport and his piece Reed Quintet I. It is a comical, theoretically intricate piece with various musical influences which was a great time to discuss about with Will. Like I mentioned in the previous blog post, it was conversations with Will early-on, a handful of months ago, that initially sparked the ideas which led to the creation of the TCC. It is also fun to reflect on being able to interview Will early on the same day before experiencing the second premiere of the piece, and the various different elements between the two versions. The more I think about it, the difference between having an oboe part and soprano saxophone actually made a large difference in the overall timbre, and Will has even mentioned to me that he is considering actually creating an official alternate version with soprano saxophone. That is, because, the reason for the soprano saxophone in the first recording (heard throughout the TCC episode) was because of available at Ohio University at the time. Either way both versions were phenomenal, shoutout to the FSU Polymorphia New Music Ensemble and Dr. Liliya Ugay, they were just different flavors of the same thing.
Through my access to the podcast analytics, it seems that Will’s episode has created a large influx of new viewers, so welcome and thank you for your interest! If you have not already, please navigate over to the episodes tab to listen to the full episode either here on our website, or use the relevant podcast hosting links to listen to it on the platform of your choosing. Thank you again to Will Davenport for coming onto the program and sharing his phenomenal piece Reed Quintet I.
Will Davenport’s Contributor Page: https://www.tccollaboration.com/guests/will-davenport/
Ky Nam Documentary Reminder
This is simply a reminder, in case if you missed the special announcement yesterday, to please use the link below this segment to watch the now available documentary mentioned by Ky Nam Nguyen, created by her parents on the subject of Nguyen Thai Binh and the story behind A Vietnamese Mother’s Letter to Nixon. If you want to hear more about it, please navigate to the previous announcement, but otherwise please show Ky Nam and her parents support for their work on behalf of the Theorist Composer Collaboration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywKXkH1RMr4
Gabriel Gekoskie (The Next Featured Composer!!)
I am excited to preview that the next featured composer on the Theorist Composer Collaboration is Gabriel Gekoskie, and his piece, Modest Mutilation. I had the pleasure to interview Gabe this past Monday, and it certainly was a fascinating and engaging time. I’m sorry to those that don’t like long podcasts, but this one is going to be clocking-in at over an hour! I have learned, simply through practice across the interviews and editing, that a more natural flow to the conversation produces content that is more representative of the featured guest and, I hope, valuable to the listener. This will typically result in, however, much longer episode times than originally conceptualized ones for the TCC. My conversation with Gabe is more than worth the runtime. We dive very deep into music and art philosophy, the state of the music academic field, and get technical in the world of artistic adaptation and granular synthesis. Gabe is also part music theorist himself (a dual-degree in his undergraduate), or at least more of a music theorist than most composers would identify with. I don’t want to give too much away, but it was an engaging conversation that is shaping-up to be a fantastic episode which will be released this coming Monday. Stay tuned to the goings-on of the TCC, both on our website and social media, because you won’t want to miss Gabriel Gekoskie and Modest Mutilation.
FSU EChO Concert
Recently, on April 24, I attended a concert by the Electric Chamber Orchestra at Florida State University, and was inspired from the music to both highlight some of the compositions in this post as well as discuss some of the wonders of electronic music.
Electronic elements within music have a unique place in the available sounds for composition and art, as its applications can sometimes start to peel-away at our perceptions of both ideas of reality and our sensory limits. I am not exactly sure how to describe it, but many times I have the experience of a third-person perspective when enveloped in a world of electronically generated and manipulated sound. It brings life into perspective, which sometimes can be both uncomfortable and transcendent. This is not to create a value judgment of the medium however, as it is just a different flavor of experiences. If acoustic music embodies our experiences, then electronic manipulation imagines beyond such things. Their roles are interchangeable depending on the compositional purpose, but this is just my perception from my experiences at such concerts.
Youngsun Kim, a D.M.A. candidate in composition here at FSU, premiered The Abyss, a piece for piano and electronics, with Dr. Jackie Yong performing on piano. This was an introspective exploration of the eternal idea of “the light at the end of the tunnel”, with the program notes strongly implying relation to the Biblical tale of Jonah in the belly of the whale. It sonically explores the depths of despair in the human experience, with a focus on the path back to the light. The first half of the piece is laced with darkness and deep textures, reinforced with flowing and contorted electronics, unrelenting in their torrent of sound. There seems to be an inversion point, a time of hope and a turning of fate. I have known Youngsun now for a good handful of months, and I have learned that her music manifests the human experience, always a focus on the hope essential to all of our lives. This compositional pattern continues with The Abyss, and it was quite the all-encompassing experience.
There were two pieces performed written by Missy Mazzoli, a composer that I was previously not familiar with. I have to say, these two pieces certainly personify the transcendent experience I was referencing earlier, as it felt as though the sounds in the pieces were from a time and place outside of our perception. The first piece, Vespers for Violin, for amplified violin and electronics, with Michael Mesa performing on the electric violin. An absolutely magical piece, with delay and distortion of the violin, as well as some looping I believe, which created pulsing textures that just wash over your aural senses. The second piece was similar to this one, titled A Thousand Tongues, for amplified violin, piano, and fixed media, with Michael Mesa on electric violin and Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha on piano. Honestly, I can barely describe or remember any specifics of the piece, as I was more overwhelmed in the existential feelings I was going through. I would imagine this was partially the intention, as my mind certainly left my head.
Dr. Eren Gumrukcuoglu, a professor of composition here at FSU, and also the director of the EChO ensemble, presented Plasticity, a piece for piano and fixed media, with Oliver Schoonover on piano. Dr. Gumrukcuoglu described this piece as an exploration of the improvisatory spirit, in the style of jazz and other mediums of performance which value free expression. This is a piece that I feel as though I was not mentally ready to fully perceive, as the free-form nature of the piece had an immense amount of variety and textural richness at any given moment, that it would warrant many listens before I would feel comfortable making any real observations. It is a fascinating premise, having the fixed media being the lead, with the live piano having to work-around the set, albeit improvisational output. A masterful composition that I hope to hear performed again at some point in the future.
Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha, a D.M.A. candidate in composition here at FSU, premiered two different pieces, both having their own ethereal elements. The first, Nike: The Winged Goddess of Victory, for fixed media, took full advantage of the electronic medium. From witnessing the performances of many of Natalia’s pieces at this point, I really appreciate her consideration and incorporation of visual media/art into her compositional work. The program notes describe that the soundscape was created through a variety of observations. First, was from Natalia studying the actual sculpture of Nike of Samothrace, incorporating the history and presence of the figure as well as its physical nuances. She also included the experience of the atmosphere at the Louvre Museum in Paris where it is on display, and also the noted perceptions of the other museum patrons that she observed. This is a kind of compositional process that you simply just have to admire, attempting to surmise the complete mental and sensory experience of a piece of physical art. Natalia certainly achieves this in the piece, as it is another prime example of a transcendent work that begs the listener to push beyond their daily perceptions. Peering, even if just for a time, at something more vast and encompassing than we could ever truly hope to understand. Rojcovscaia-Tumaha’s next piece is similarly touching. Another world premiere, From Passion to Compassion, for electric cello and electronics, with Angelese Pepper on electric cello, is a bridge between the human experience and the worlds that live in our minds. Through reading her program notes, as well as the raw emotion in the piece, Natalia is welcoming the listener to experience the tumultuous and dynamic mind of the performer. The struggles, strife and resolve of the electric cello interact with the fixed electronics to tell a tale of human emotion. As the title suggests, the extended techniques and disjunct lines of the electric cello beg the listener to not only hear the strife of the performer, but also summon compassion through the sound. I really admire this humanistic approach to art and sound that Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha has in her music, and I am excited for the next performances!
Here are some contact links that I found for these wonderful composers:
Youngsun Kim: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094818487129
Dr. Eren Gumrukcuoglu: https://www.ereng.net/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0YkHSiajjjqk3c44uPgo-PLeerXUgAPzJ5orbkJdVdR0-dzIzfYPTkdVo_aem_Af6_2uzFk0ZwSSd6YTirn9rNFZGsTu2O5GlD1BgOPLG4aXlP3NzOJRMmjEMm9fMXJzSRpcThwUauMLw7pebmspSF
Natalia Rojcovscaia-Tumaha: https://rojcovscaiatumaha.wixsite.com/official?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0amw3dXjtRsPgQYrznNc8mOCEtUHpUUQWiePeyd8gHvkVYI_OsESp0xZU_aem_Af4-gZ_rbkpkKK2CmlwV9qLo5YSmi4ovwtniBWrFoPigSkbIpsm4pIJ1ii6TDH1d5eWuTYEHNQ_gscImBu0TET24
Oliver Schoonover Mini-Feature
One more composition featured at the FSU EChO concert was from the composer Oliver Schoonover, a soon-to-be-graduated student of composition at here at FSU, presenting and performing on his piece titled Simple Pleasures. This work was probably the most different and visually striking out of all of the ones on the concert. This piece is for piano, windchimes, teapot, electric fan and fixed media. Which, if you are a little thrown by the inclusion of a teapot and electric fan into the mix, you are not alone. It is perhaps because I come from the field and practice of music theory and not composition, but pieces that go so outside of the norm, such as this one, capture my curiosity immediately, even without any sound having been played. When Oliver and Justine (de Saint Mars, our first featured composer!!) walked on stage with a plastic folding table with a small oscillating desk fan, two mugs, an electric teapot, and then put a set of beautiful wind chimes next to the table, he had me hooked. Quite frankly I don’t remember many of the nuances of the piece at this point, similar to Dr. Gumrukcuoglu’s work, as there were so many technical elements that it was hard to look past just the pure joy and marvel of it all. This piece, in fact, got me so excited and interested that I thought to myself “I must speak to the composer about this immediately”. Poor Oliver, he was so nice and tolerant of my enthusiasm, with me insisting to quickly ask him questions for a small feature, even after he just got done performing on four pieces, one of them being his own. Sometimes I am not always the most perceptive. I’m sorry Oliver, but thank you!!!! I just get so excited with novel compositions. The following is a transcript of the two-minute conversation I had with Oliver Schoonover about his piece, approximately 5 minutes after the final applause of the concert and while the stage was being put-away around us:
[Aaron] So we’re here at the EChO concert, here at FSU and I’m talking to Oliver (Schooner). So, your piece……was titled……Simple Pleasures. For piano, wood chimes, teapot, electric fan and fixed media. Now I ask this lovingly, but what possessed you to put an electric teapot on a plastic table?
[Oliver] Oh, I never even thought of that…..that’s a…..so it has a plastic base.
[Aaron] Oh okay.
[Oliver] So there’s metal on the top, but the bottom doesn’t get super hot.
[Aaron] Were you thinking of John Cage when you did that?
[Oliver] I was thinking of John Cage, and Panayiotis Kokorashas has a piece that’s kind of a similar mood to this, but, all of the, the teapot’s all in the electronics, so it’s kind of a combination of that and the John Cage.
[Aaron] The teapot’s in the electronics?
[Oliver] In Panayiotis Kokorashas’s piece, it’s called Hiss and Whistle I believe.
[Aaron] Oh okay, interesting, interesting.
[Oliver] Yeah it’s a cool piece.
[Aaron] So was this the premier of that piece? (Simple Pleasures)
[Oliver] It was not, it was premiered at my senior recital.
[Aaron] Oh my gosh, I mean, the whole display of it, when you brought-out that plastic table it looked like it was ready for a Sunday brunch, I’m not gonna lie. That was, I just wanted to ask you about the instrumentation, if you want to call it that, love the little desk fan.
[Oliver] Okay, yes, yes. I mean, the fan was to blow the chimes, and so, it was kinda necessary. The teapot, I don’t remember, I think it was I listened to the Panayiotis Kokorashas piece and I wanted to add teapot but the original idea was just the wind chimes and the piano, yeah.
[Aaron] Oh it was a fantastic eclectic piece, lots of interesting timbres, I would love to have you fully on the show at some point, but I just had to go up and ask you about this real quick, so thanks for this little interjection. I know you performed quite a few pieces tonight, fantastic job and congratulations on the performance.
[Oliver] Thank, thank you so much.
Thank you again to Oliver Schoonover for this quick, and probably inconvenient, discussion about his piece Simple Pleasures.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oliver.juliet.54
Moving Forward
This was quite the blog post compared to the others, and I thank you for reading it, or at least a portion of it. I am excited to reveal that the next guest after Gabe Gekoskie is going to be Dr. Nico Gutierrez and his masterful piece, Teogonia. Make sure follow all of the relevant social media accounts and podcast players, links to which are at the top of this webpage. I am incredibly thankful to all of the contributors who choose to be featured on here, as well as all of the listeners. Make sure to tune-in this coming Monday for the next episode with Gabe, and if you haven’t already, make sure to watch the episode with Will Davenport. Thank you, and I’ll see you all again on Monday!
- Aaron
